Greetings from Costa Rica

My name is Tyler and I am currently living in the culinary wasteland that is Costa Rica. If you've ever been here and avoided the over priced tourist restaurants you will know what I mean. The popular dishes here are rice and beans as well as beans with rice. I enjoyed cooking and baking, but when I got here my supplies were quite limited.

I rent a furnished apartment that included an electric skillet, a blender, a toaster, and a medium sized refrigerator with an ice box. It included little else spare for a dull steak knife, a soup ladle, and a slotted spoon. By now I have added to my collection to have some decent inclusions like a good sized toaster oven and a table top gas stove, but the bigger problem is the lack of ingredients. Fresh fruit and veggies abound, but meat is expensive, and (going back to the culinary wasteland part) Costa Rican's aren't too adventurous with cooking making things hard to find.

At times even basic supplies are hard to track down. I haven't had bread flour since the Artisanal Baker from Spain closed up shop and I haven't seen a bag of powdered sugar in a while. Finding seasonings can be even more of a challenge. I was ecstatic when the grocery store got Garlic Powder instead of Garlic Salt so I didn't have to grate a clove of garlic every time I wanted to add a bit of garlic flavor.

So that is a little about me and my background. I cook to fill the void where good food should be and I usually enjoy it in the process. As a result I want to improve and learn.